Just a Smidge of Over-Duplication
by Ivyyyyyy
Summary: The testing of Danny's duplication ability goes more than a little awry, with not-so-normal consequences. Splitting yourself apart is hard enough, but having to deal with a malfunctioning core is just downright painful. Set shortly after 'D-Stabilized'. Inspired by sponges, ghost anatomy speculations, and a good bet to actually write this crazy story. Bottom line: Things get weird.


**[A/N]:** _Welcome! Just a heads up, this story is strange, to say the least. Not creepily, but darkly odd. Prepare yourself for anything, especially ghost bonding and anatomy speculations, and how they differ from humans._

_Please, enjoy this story for what it is, and what it shall be. It'll grow with multiple chapters, and probably be more than a little weird._

_Thank you for reading this thus far. It is greatly appreciated._

**UPDATED:**_ 3/13/2016_

* * *

"Come on, dude! You're on fire!"

Eight duplicate Danny Phantoms easily littered the Fenton's basement of a lab. At Tucker's shout, all of them grinned widely, and two more popped into existence.

"I dunno, guys, I'm really feelin' it. How many do you think I can handle?" All of the Dannys echoed at once, making the lab reverberate with the eerie sound. Their green eyes glowed with amusement.

"FIFTY-MILLION!"

The trio was currently testing the half-ghost's abilities, and so far, Danny was showing improvement from the previous week's session.

Another pair of laughing phantoms floated through the air.

Okay. Make that a lot of improvement.

Tucker continued to root his ghostly friend on. Glaring, Sam elbowed the beret-wearer hard in the side. The classic jab made every half-ghost duplicate in the room snicker, barely hiding it behind their hands.

"Tucker! We don't want him to max out. Last week he could only manage six." The Goth crossed her arms defiantly. "And now it's suddenly double that? What gives?"

Tucker only shrugged.

One of the Dannys, who Sam and Tucker assumed was the main strategist, floated over to the two. He visibly bounced on the balls of his feet in the air, giddy with excitement. Looking up at him, the ghost boy's already brilliant glow seemed to flare ever so slightly. Then he blinked, and yet another set of copies sprung to 'life', coalescing from mist straight off of him. They soared through the limited space of the lab, snorting like they'd just heard the joke of the century.

The other duplicates across the room seemed to be locked in a contest of particularly witty banter. They kept challenging each other at eye level, snarky comments all around as they floated higher, struggling for dominance.

"I can't believe you don't want to play blackjack. It's like, my favorite." One of the doubles grumbled, card deck in hand.

"Well you need to shave! Get rid of all that nasty peach fuzz."

"Dude! We've got the same freaking face!"

Danny crossed his legs in midair and floated like he was leaning against a wall, barely keeping up the casual image. Green light danced in his eyes. In a half-fist, he threw his thumb over his shoulder at the crowd of duplicates.

"Man, I'm lovin' this. Definitely some of my best work!" The smile was huge on his face. Tucker and Sam looked past him to get another look at the jumble of flailing Phantoms.

"Hey! Why don't you go sit down, old man? That hair of yours is gettin' pretty snowy. You cold, too?"

One of the hovering duplicates shook a finger at another, who was rooted to the floor. The defender narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, attitude! What're you gonna do? Freeze me—"

An ice blast that anchored the offending copy to the ground solved that problem.

"Augh, come onnn! You know I hate to break my masterpieces…"

The ice-fond doppelganger sniffed indignantly as he drifted through the floor.

A few yards away, another double floated higher than the rest, sitting cross-legged in the air like a full time meditations instructor. A handful of Phantoms were surrounding him, miffed expressions plain as day.

"Seriously, guys. It's obvious that I'm taller."

The real Danny sheepishly grinned at his two friends.

Sam pointedly rolled her eyes. "Yeah. A real achievement."

Danny only laughed harder at the comment.

Across the room, the supposedly taller duplicate was zapped by a few quick ghost rays from the others, and the original ghost boy visibly winced. Sam looked up sharply and opened her mouth, no doubt to reprimand him for pushing himself, but he cut her off.

"Really, Sam. This is like, the highest energy spike I've had, ever." He spun in the air, a glimmering smile on his face. "It's like I drank six hundred freaking espressos that were loaded with sugar."

Tucker grinned. "Those things are practically pure caffeine. And an excellent side to a dozen donuts."

Sam huffed disbelievingly, but that easily broke into chuckles. "Hey, you know, they actually are."

The ghost boy was grinning like the Cheshire cat. "When I get my allowance, we're so going out for donuts." A duplicate fluttered by right then, and Danny high-fived himself. Literally.

The boy's eyes glowed a brighter green, and he swooped up into the air.

"Geez. This feels awesome!" Phantom pumped his fists. "How many am I at now? Fourteen? It feels like I'm everywhere at once." At that moment, one of the copies phased up from the floor.

"Okay, not like. I am." He circled around Tucker.

"Come on, Tuck. Dare me. Let's see how many times I can copy myself." He crossed his arms with a smirk.

"Danny!" Sam took a step forward. "You need to be smart about this. We don't know what your limit is with duplication ri—"

"Pfft, Sam, please," the teen waved her off reassuringly for what seemed to be the hundredth time.

"I'm fine. I'm Danny Phantom. Public Ghost Enemy Number One, remember?" He confidently made air quotes with his gloved hands. "I've got this," he argued, shooting a glance Sam's way. The dark-clothed teen groaned and smacked her forehead in defeat.

"You're all idiots."

In response, every one of the duplicates in the room turned to her in a single movement and uttered a snarky, "Suuuure we are, Sam."

The girl made another eyeroll as the ridiculous males giggled like mad. She sighed, plopping herself down in one of the lab's rigid chairs, deciding to watch.

Tucker chimed in. "Yeah! Okay man, cough up two more!"

"On it!"

The main Danny glowed brighter than last time, and two copies split from him. They too joined the large mass of doubles, who were now mixed up in some kind of unearthly card game with the spare deck from the argument earlier.

However, this time, as the new doubles split from Danny, his hand shot to his chest, and he took a big gulp of air.

"Whoa. I felt that one." He shook himself. "But I think I can handle one more. Should I go for it?" He chuckled, and floated stoically up and down with his arms neatly folded, a determined gleam in his bright green eyes.

"No!"

"Yes!"

Ignoring Sam's response and taking Tucker's word for it, Danny prepared to duplicate himself again. He curled his limbs in towards his center, concentrating harder. Shaking with the effort, he forced upon himself the familiar feeling in his icy core; to split, to expand, to copy.

But just as he felt the last pulse of energy needed for the split, something within him snapped. Jarred his very being. White light flashed, but he didn't change back to his human form. His green eyes flew open with a start. The tiniest of gasps escaped his lips. Time seemed to stop as he hung in midair, but Clockwork was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly he plummeted. All of the copies of the famous ghost boy dissolved into nothing but mist. Cards dropped. One last laugh from a duplicate, winning blackjack, filled the air.

The original Danny crashed to the lab floor in a heap, making a loud thwack. His two friends immediately rushed forward, concern etched onto their faces.

"Danny? Hey, can you hear me? Danny!"

The world was a blur. The white-haired boy heard voices, felt the feeling of being pushed onto his back. He felt his core pulse with cold. Felt a tingling. Like a shivering spark—

The slap across the face from Sam sent him reeling.

He sat bolt upright, breathing heavily. Dazed, Danny shook his head in an attempt to clear it. The movement sent a headache spiraling into existence and he winced.. His green eyes found Sam's violet ones, but he couldn't get any words out. His core felt like it was sizzling. He gripped at his chest. His mind geared at a mile a minute. Finally, he found his voice.

"What in the living hell was that?"

Sam opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by loud footsteps from upstairs. The trio whipped their heads towards the basement steps. Danny's breath hitched in his throat. A bluish white mist came past his lips, and his eyes widened to startled green orbs. He forced his breathing to calm.

"Danny? Sam…Tucker? Are you kids down there?" Maddie's worried voice sounded hauntingly near.

"Busted. Oh crap." Tucker bounced up from where he was kneeling next to Danny. The ghostly teen shot him a weak glare. With what little strength and speed he had left, the boy clad in the black hazmat suit latched onto both of his friends' arms and shoved his feet hard into the ground, launching them up towards the ceiling. At the last moment before impact, he turned intangible and blasted through the first floor, straight up to the second, and stopped in his room, letting go of his passengers. He sprawled onto the carpet.

Tucker leaned against his friend's blue bed. Sam knelt next to the half-ghost's side, her hand on his shoulder. She shook him gently. She nearly recoiled at how cold he felt, but the strong-willed Sam Manson in her remained firm.

"Danny?"

The black hazmat suited figure groaned, and the remainder of the trio sighed in relief.

Twitching with the effort, Danny got up onto his hands and knees, still trying to catch his breath, trembling with each intake. Green eyes dimly looked around, and the ghostly aura faded to an extremely dull glow. He faced downward, at his shaking hands on the carpet.

"You okay, man? You look really drained," Tucker questioned, stepping closer.

Again, Danny shook his head, silvery-white hair flopping back and forth messily. He shuddered. Within his core, icy chills made his ecto-interior spasm. He gasped, and another wisp of his ghost sense spilled forth. But at that moment, none of them, except maybe Danny, with that damn hero complex of his, were really ready to take on another ghost. The teen already looked like he'd lost to some invisible enemy.

Sam and Tucker exchanged a glance, and the latter edged nearer. They could only wait for their friend to regain himself.

Eventually, Danny's breathing regulated, although he still looked stricken. Tiny shivers coursed through him. A dull, cold ache throbbed from within his core. He put a shaky hand to his chest and sat up.

"Dude, what happened?" Tucker's teal eyes flicked between Sam and Danny.

"I…I dunno. I feel…weird." He splayed his fingers overtop of the DP logo. "Like something…like something just frickin' punched me right in the ghost core." Sam looked over at him, and then to her own hand as she took it away from his shoulder. It was strangely numb.

"Well, you're really cold." She paused. "Colder than usual, anyway." She turned slightly to face him. "Maybe something's up with your ice core?" The Goth looked at his shaking form quizzically.

"Yeah…maybe." He stood, wobbly on his feet, and tried to suppress the odd feeling. His surrounding glow flickered back to life, regaining some more light. "But whatever it was, I think it's passed."

Danny shuddered once more and he breathed out a blue mist. A moment later, a familiarly annoying laugh sounded from out in the street, right outside of Fenton Works. The three glanced to the window, Danny rolling his eyes.

"Ugh. Not him again."

"I am the Box Ghost! BEWARE!"

"Hold on, guys. This'll only take a sec." The half-ghost quickly lifted into the air and phased out of the bluish room, straight through the brick wall of his room.

"But Danny wait—" The boy had already pushed through the wall; Sam's urgent voice falling on deaf ears, save for Tucker. He shrugged it off.

"Nah, he'll be fine. It's just the Box Ghost. What's the worst that could happen?"

* * *

"Look . I've already sent you back to the Ghost Zone twice today. And I'm really not in the mood for chores." He shot a blazing green ecto-ray towards the Box Ghost, hitting him square in the chest. He held up the thermos hastily.

"Just get in here, okay? You're not even scary. The Lunch Lady's worse than you."

The Box Ghost seethed in anger, and raised a generous amount of cardboard boxes, filled with art craft supplies from the store across the street. The hunched blue ghost grinned madly at the crates.

"I'll show you who's scary with my COLORFULLY RECTANGULAR BOXES OF DOOM!" He sent the horde flying towards the halfa, who dodged them all with ease, simply turning intangible as the last few came soaring by.

"Ha! You're too easy! I swear, I'm gonna beat you with one—" He stopped suddenly, a fresh onslaught of cold erupting from his core. What? Nononono. Stay up, stay up. He cringed, still suspended fifteen feet above the blacktopped road, and started to curl in on himself. No. He gritted his teeth, hard. The thermos slipped from his grip and dropped to the ground with a clang.

Phantom struggled to regain control. It felt like ice was crystallizing under his ectoplasmic skin, rocking his core with a force that made him gasp out in pain. It felt like something was squeezing his ghost center, waiting for it to splatter into ectoplasmic goop. A scream escaped him. A sensation that felt like fingers of ice clawing their way out of his core made him grip harder at his chest.

The Box Ghost took his chance. While the ghost boy fidgeted, hung up in the air, he levitated a particularly large box, one filled with a heap of printer cartridges. It was more than enough to last a week in a print shop. Without hesitation, the overall-wearing ghost chucked the massive package straight at his enemy.

It hit effectively, knocking a squirming Phantom almost fifty feet into the dark alley behind him, a darker shadow looming in the already pitch dark of night. His echo of a voice could be heard screeching in pain.

Triumphant as ever, the ghost of boxes stopped for a moment.

"I…I actually hit him! Ye…yeah!" He threw his chunky arms up in the air in sheer excitement. "I won against the precious Ghost Boy. I am the all-powerful BOX GHOST! BE—"

"Oh, will you shut up?" A brilliant blue light flashed through the air, aimed directly at the hunched blue ghost, and it started to suck him into the Fenton Thermos.

"WAAAAAAAARE…!"

Sam capped the thermos with a huff.

"Glad that's over." She looked over to Tucker, who'd started towards the alley where Danny had been thrown. He was hastily picking his way through leaking puddles of paint and smushed boxes.

"Did you find him yet, Tuck?" Sam called. The boy halted in his tracks, his back turned to her. "Tucker?"

"Yeah…" His voice quivered like he'd gulped, and he turned ever so slightly to look back at her.

Sam, who'd been working her way over through the debris, stopped cold when she saw the dreaded expression on his face.

"Uh…Sam?"


End file.
